It has been a brutal18-year wait, almost to the day, for justice. It finally ended yesterday with an Enmore suspect in police custody.
The suspect fled Guyana around 2000 after a savage attack that left a neighbour and three dogs dead and a daughter nursing chop wounds.
The suspect was arrested from his sister’s home.
Yesterday, Deochand Singh, 27, who was nine at the time of the brutal killing, said that justice has been served and that the killer, Deonarine Bhikhari, is finally behind bars to face the court.
The suspect fled to Venezuela to evade justice, but returned recently, reportedly because of hardships in that Spanish-speaking neighbouring country.
According to attorney-at-law, James Bond, who is representing the Singh family, they contacted him and disclosed that Bhikhari was hiding out at a sister’s home in Log Wood, an Enmore community that adjoins Hope West where the brutal murder took place on May 21, 2000.
Bond disclosed that he made contact with police in ‘C’ Division, and an operation was immediately activated.
Ranks along with Bond went to the sister’s home where they were directed, and according to Singh, he identified the suspect who came out to meet the police.

Captured killer: Deonarine Bhikhari

Hacked to death: Daniel Singh

The man identified himself as the suspect, Deonarine Bhikhari and he was told of the crime and arrested by Constable Washington.
He was taken to the Cove and John Police Station where he is being questioned.
According to Singh, the suspect admitted to the crime in the presence of the police.
Singh was one of four siblings who lived with their father at the Hope West area.
Daniel Singh, 49, was a single father who once served as the Chief Bailiff of the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court, East Coast Demerara. At the time of his death, he had started working with the Guyana Sugar Corporation.
According to reports, on the morning of May 21, 2000, the children watched helplessly as the seemingly crazed neighbour, clad only in his underwear, chopping their father.
The incident occurred around 05:00hrs when the sugar worker rose to prepare food. The father was sitting on his steps when he was attacked.

The newspaper clipping, carried by Stabroek News in 2000, that the family kept.

The children watched as Bhikhari allegedly mercilessly chopped their father on the head and on his body. He then turned his attention to the barking dogs, killing three of them.
The decease man’s teenage daughter, Bhagwantie ‘Nalini’ Singh, was attacked too and chopped after she started screaming, questioning the neighbour about his actions.
The daughter was saved after she fled to a neighbour’s yard. The crazed man then turned his attention to the two sons, one of them 12 who stood stunned at the happenings.
They barely managed to flee into their home, locking it shut.
Singh was later declared dead at the hospital.
The suspect reportedly went into hiding. There were no motives given for the attack at that time.
According to the family yesterday, they are convinced that the suspect, whose father was a senior member of a political party in the area, used his connections to hide his son and later spirited him from the country.
According to Bond, the man’s son, Deochand, who was seeking justice, even researching the details of the report from newspapers’ archive, recently spoke about the incident at a PNCR rally at Stabroek Market Square.
It was evident that family was not giving up hope.
The police confirmed the arrest and said that a male being sought by police since 2000 for the murder of Daniel Singh at Enmore, East Coast Demerara, was yesterday morning apprehended by ranks of ‘C’ Division at Enmore.